Crescent City, Calif.-based Rumiano Cheese Co. says it released the Kamome Chef Box, a limited-edition home chef culinary kit. Curated to commemorate the sister city friendship between Crescent City and Rikuzentakata, Japan, the kit is available online. It features a very special edition of Rumiano’s classic Dry Jack cheese that has been aged one year and finished with sea salt from Hirota Bay in Rikuzentakata, Japan. All profits from Kamome Chef Box sales will benefit the sister city high school student exchange program that funds scholarships for two students in Crescent City and two students in Rikuzentakata to visit opposite sides of the world for a cultural and educational experience.

Highlighted during the recent Summer Olympic Games broadcast in an NBC Sports documentary, the two cities developed ties after a boat named “Kamome” from Takata High School in Rikuzentakata washed ashore in Crescent City, two years after having been swept out to sea by the tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake. A story of hope was realized when students at Del Norte High School cleaned the boat and returned it to the Japanese high school. The relationship continued to deepen over the years, and in 2019, Rumiano Cheese Co. says it traveled to Rikuzentakata with the North Coast Trade Delegation to forge a formal sister city relationship and student exchange program.

“The connection between our two communities is a special one, and this remarkable story is just in its first chapter. While we have many geographical similarities; we also have so much to learn from each other,” says Baird Rumiano, president and third-generation co-owner at Rumiano Cheese Co. “Japanese sea salt is extremely rich in flavor, and it gains a sweetness as it ages. Adding it to our classic Dry Jack, and aging it for a year in our nearly 100-year-old cellars, has produced a very limited supply of this special cheese.”

According to Rumiano Cheese Co., the Kamome Chef Box is available online and at the company’s Crescent City cheese store for $95. It includes three half-pound hand-crafted wedges of limited-edition Kamome Dry Jack, an 8.45-ounce bottle of Gunrock Estate extra virgin olive oil, an 8-ounce bottle of Miracle soy sauce made from 200-year-old cultures in Rikuzentakata, and a 2-ounce tin of sea salt sourced from Rikuzentakata’s Hirota Bay.